


A Love Story

by painted_pain



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-31
Updated: 2012-03-31
Packaged: 2017-11-02 20:09:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/372905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/painted_pain/pseuds/painted_pain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean cradles you in his little arms, your body almost too heavy for him and you gaze up at him, your big brother, your bestest brother, your sun and your moon and your earth and your stars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Love Story

You stare through the window of Lisa Braedon’s house; drink your fill of Dean alive, Dean at home, Dean with his apple-pie life, letting the night breeze ruffle your hair, cold and soft. You pretend it’s soothing, that you’re grateful it’s not the dry, arid, suffocating air of Hell. You stand in the cool, dark night, let it wrap itself around you and you imagine it’s better than  _before._   
  
You could never have normal, you never deserved it. You look for minutes, hours, days and then you turn away, stealing back into the darkness.   
  
You love Dean, have always loved him, even when you hated him and shouted at him, screamed at him for not standing up to Dad, for not doing what he wanted. Even when acted the way he always did and pulled away. You loved Dean even when you ran away.    
  
You ran away  _because_  you loved Dean, loved him too much, much more than a brother should – making Dean the centre of your world, your orbit. So you ran away.   
  
And you are doing it again.   
  
You slide into you stolen car and drive away, blinking back tears, your fingers gripping the steering wheel tight enough to turn your knuckles white. The leather creaks under the weight of your decision. The streetlights flashed past you, illuminating the empty seat beside you, and you grit your teeth and drive faster.   
  
***   
  
When you are just fourteen months old, your mind still forming and processing and learning, you speak your first word.    
  
Dean cradles you in his little arms, your body almost too heavy for him and you gaze up at him, your big brother, your  _bestest_  brother, your sun and your moon and your earth and your stars, illuminated by the light and the dust motes swirling. You blink at him adoringly, safe in this haven, warm and safe and loved. Dean isn’t looking at you, his big green eyes fixed on the motel door. He is waiting, small and afraid, in the dark room, waiting for your father to come in and fill the looming empty spaces.   
  
You make a mumbling sound, trying to catch Dean’s attention, because he is afraid. He is unhappy. You don’t understand what is wrong, what is upsetting Dean but you know, in your own small, childlike way, that you have to fix it.    
  
Your tiny fingers clutch his t-shirt and you tug. Dean only makes a soothing murmur and doesn’t look away from the door. You pout childishly, unhappy with this, and then you scrunch your face up in concentration, focusing so hard you can feel your little face grow hot with it. You begin to move your lips around the sounds that push insistently behind them, desperate to be let out.   
  
“De,” you say finally, quietly, after minutes of straining effort. You glance up hopefully at Dean, half afraid you’ve done it wrong, that it didn’t work. That Dean is still sad and scared.   
  
“De,” you say again, louder this time when Dean’s wide-eyed gaze turns to you, the name full of joy and happiness. The word bubbles up and you say it again and again and again when you see Dean smile, crooked with empty spaces, a look of childlike wonder stealing across his face. Dean isn’t afraid anymore. Dean is happy and so are you.   
  
Even then, Dean came first. Even then, it was all about Dean.   
  
Even then, you loved him too much.   
  
***   
  
When you are eighteen months, you grab onto the edge on the table in front of you and heave yourself up onto unsteady legs. Dad sits on the bed to your left, brow creased into a heavy frown, staring at the books on the bed with him. Dean sits on the bed to your right. He had been watching cartoons but is now watching you, on the careful lookout, in case you fall and hurt yourself, his big eyes creased with apprehension, his lips pressing together tightly.   
  
With Dean, you know you will be protected, that he won’t let anything hurt you and so you let go of the table, wobbling on your baby legs, and walk towards him, arms outstretched. Dean’s eyes widen with surprise and then fill with pride. A warm flush spreads through your chest and you shuffle forward, determined not to fall.    
  
Your outstretched arms latch onto the end of the bed, where Dean has crawled forward to catch you, to wrap you up in warm arms.   
  
“De,” you squeal, “De, did it.”   
  
And all Dean can say is a soft, “Sammy.”   
  
When you look back on this memory, you don’t remember Dad’s response. All you can see is Dean and it’s enough.    
  
***   
  
The first time you tell Dean you hate him, you are six and you say it because Dean says “Don’t ask about Mom, Sam, she isn’t here, she’s not coming back, she’s gone, she’s  _dead_ .” He glares at you, anger written in the tense lines of his ten year-old face but his eyes are sad.   
  
“Quit asking, Sam.”    
  
He won’t tell you where Dad is and treats you like the little kid you pretend not to be. You say the words with such conviction, such vitriol, you shock yourself and when you see Dean’s ashen face, you apologise immediately, eyes swimming in crocodile tears.    
  
“I’m sorry, Dean. I’m sorry. Please, don’t hate me. I don’t hate you. I don’t!” You say it all so fast, the words trip up over themselves and collide into each other and lose their meaning. Dean isn’t looking at you, instead staring at a spot on the wall somewhere over your right shoulder. Scared that he will never talk to you again, you say, “De...”    
  
Dean looks at you then, his eyes full of hurt and surprise at the first word you ever said, the use of the name you called him for months before Dad told you not too.   
  
“De,” you whisper, eyes on the floor, face red with shame and you hear Dean whispers back, saying “Sammy.”    
  
You stumble over to him and throw your arms around his middle, burying your head in the soft flesh of his stomach, trying to hide your tears.    
  
“I love you,” and you mean it more than anything else you have ever said before in all six years of your life.   
  
You still tell Dean you hate him at least once every week and when you become a teenager, you refuse to talk to him for days on end, ignoring the hurt and pain in those green, green eyes, only telling him in measured tones how you hate him and Dad and this life. You mean it. You mean it with every cell in your body.   
  
But it’s a lie because you love Dean more.   
  
***   
  
When you receive your letter from Stanford, you want to run outside to Dean, where he’s waiting in the Impala, wave the thick envelope in his face and cheer wildly, tell him you did it, you got the scholarship. You want him to be proud of you. You imagine how bright his green eyes will be, how his smile will be the special one, reserved just for you, how he might wrap you up in his arms, not caring – a flash of heat bolts low through your stomach and you stop, pausing in your dash from the counsellors office.    
  
You feel sick.   
  
When you slide into the car several minutes later, the envelope is stashed away, your face schooled into a look of boredom. Dean doesn’t even ask how school was and your heart shatters because you can’t stay.   
  
One day he will know because you can’t keep anything from him, Dean always figures you out and the idea makes you want to claw at your skin and pull yourself into the smallest bundle of nothing, so you can just disappear.   
  
You love him too much to stay. And hating the life you live will make it easier. You can be normal. You whisper the words in your head, you’re own little mantra and ignore the cracks that threaten to expose it for the lie it is.    
  
When you do tell Dean, it is the night you have to leave and you try not to see the hurt and pain that flares in his eyes. You have a yelling match with Dad that is mainly the truth but you use it to cover up the sobs that threaten to spill from your mouth.   
  
You love Dean, he comes first, he is enough but you won’t destroy the only good thing you have.   
  
  
***   
  
It is never a case of Dean being your first love or of you being  _in_  love with Dean. Your love for Dean has always been there, it just _is_  – no beginning, no ending, no middle. Just there, simmering under the surface, thrumming through your blood. It makes you feel alive, wanted – you belong.   
  
But somehow, over the years, as you slip from a small boy to a gangly teenager to a towering man, it changes, grows, transforms into something much more than it had been before. And you never even notice it happening until all of a sudden, you can’t breathe without Dean, without the smell of him in the air. You hate it when he comes home smelling of perfume, lips spit-slick and hickeys sucked into his neck, his jawline, tucked beneath his ear and you realise you’re jealous.    
  
And when your pulse leaps and races as you watch Dean step out of the bathroom, body glistening almost as brightly as his eyes, towel hung low about his hips, you know that this will never end well. That it’s wrong.    
  
That one day, you’ll have to leave.   
  
***   
  
When Jess asks you who your first love was, you smile at her softly, features smoothed, the pain tucked away in the creases of your eyes.   
  
She asks and you reply with a lie.   
  
“You.”


End file.
